Ferry captain apologizes; frantic search for 287 missing

SEOUL
— The captain of a sunken ferry apologized Thursday for the accident
that has left nearly 300 passengers missing and a frantic search
underway to find survivors.

Meanwhile, a little girl has emerged as a heart-breaking symbol of the tragedy.

Nine
bodies have been recovered so far in the disaster that survivors say
was made worse by the amount of time it took for an order to evacuate
the Sewol after it lurched suddenly to one side Wednesday.

"I am
really sorry and deeply ashamed," a man identified by broadcaster YTN
and Yonhap news agency as the captain, 60-year-old Lee Joon-seok, said
in brief comments shown on TV, his face hidden beneath a gray hoodie. "I
don't know what to say."

Divers continued to search the frigid,
swift-moving waters Thursday night for the 287 passengers still missing
among the 475 people who departed from Incheon, near the capital of
Seoul, for the 14-hour trip to Jeju island. The popular tourist
destination features volcanic landscapes, beaches, golf courses and
casinos.

The search was hampered Thursday by strong currents, rain
and bad visibility. Part of the keel of the Sewol remained visible in
waters off Mokpo, about 290 miles from Seoul.

Delayed by fog, the
captain reportedly steered the Sewol for an alternate course to save
time and was three hours from Jeju when passengers heard a loud bang and
the ship listed to port, said YTN. The government has not determined
the cause of the disaster but media here say officials are looking into
whether the ship hit submerged rocks, or changed course so sharply that
cargo shifted below and overturned the boat.

On-board safety
announcements told passengers to stay where they were inside the boat
and put on life jackets to await rescue, say survivors. Soon there were
dozens of boats and helicopters on the scene but when the ship began
tilting over in its side there was no time for some to escape.

Among those on board was a 5-year-old girl who has become a symbol of the tragedy.

Kyun
Ji-Yeon was going to start a new life off the country's south coast.
Tired of the urban struggle, her father Kyun Jae-Gyun had loaded a truck
with their furniture and possessions to head to Jeju's mild climate. He
planned to grow tangerines, one of the island's best-known exports.

The
girl was among the survivors. She was taken with others to a Mokpo
hospital on the southwestern tip of the Korean Peninsula and did not
know where her family was.

She told nurses that her brother, age
6, and her mother, had put a life jacket on her and pushed her up and
out of the tilted ferry with the help of other adults, reported SBS
television network. Concerned nurses and others who knew she was alone
started a social media campaign Wednesday, posting her picture online,
to find her family members, reported the Korea Times newspaper.

Celebrities
were among the many people who spread the word on social networks about
the little girl, including TV host and entertainer Ha Dong-hoon, better
known as Haha. They later learned they had the wrong spelling for the
girl's name. After correcting it, a cousin of the girl tweeted that an
aunt and grandmother had seen Kyun on television and were heading to the
hospital.

Kyun showed little emotion in television footage but
her aunt said she was showing stress and had thrown up the cookies she
had fed her. A passenger surnamed Kim said he was the one who took her
in his arms as he climbed up the tilted ship, said the Korea Times.

She
was passed between four men before being taken from the ship. There has
been no word on whether her father, mother and brother made it off.

Survivors
blamed the high number of missing passengers on the ship's crew issuing
repeated announcements that passengers should stay put even when the
ship began tilting dramatically, said Yonhap.

Video clips taken by
survivors revealed that the on-board announcements continued to
instruct passengers to stay inside, despite the ferry tilting so far
that people could not stand properly, said the Korea Herald.

"Go inside and wait, as the cabin is safer," a ferry staffer said in an announcement recorded on video by a passenger.

Relatives
shouted, jostled and threw water bottles at Prime Minister Chung
Hong-won when he visited them early Thursday morning at a gymnasium on
Jindo Island, where many families of the passengers have gathered.

"How dare you come here with your chin up?" one relative screamed, reported the Korea Herald newspaper. "Would you respond like this if your own child was in that ship?"

One
mother stopped Chung from leaving. "Don't run away, Mr. Prime Minister.
Please tell us what you're planning to do," she said, according to the Korea Herald.

The 480-foot-long ship was authorized to carry more than 900 people and 180 vehicles, according to Korea news media reports.

"A
large hole caused by a submerged rock is the most probable reason why
enough water poured into the ferry to cause it to capsize," Chung
Yong-hyun, at the Korea Diving Industry Institute, told Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

"We're
investigating whether the Sewol struck rocks while going off the course
recommended by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries to reach Jeju
faster because it was about three hours behind schedule due to fog the
previous night," the Ministry of Security and Public Administration told
the paper.

Three
students and two teachers were among the nine people confirmed dead. A
mainland Chinese couple, headed to Jeju with their car, are among the
missing, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported Thursday.

The
married couple, ethnic Koreans from close to the North Korean border,
were a Miss Han, 38, and a Mr Li, 39, reported the Chinese state
television channel CCTV.

Some
Chinese expressed their sorrow online, and made connections to the
missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 plane, which had 153 Chinese
citizens on board.

"People
from countries which have just experienced missing relatives can best
understand and sympathize with the mood of South Korean people," wrote
Bai Ming, a government economic researcher, on Sina Weibo Thursday. "I
wish more people can be rescued."

Hope rose Wednesday that
some of the missing passengers may be alive, trapped in an area with an
air pocket. The father of one of the missing passengers said he received
a text message from his child that said there were still passengers
alive on board the boat, Al Jazeera reported.

The text message read, "I am alive, there are students alive, please save us quickly," according to Al Jazeera.

However,
the timing of the text messages was not clear. As of Thursday night,
the ship has been underwater for more than 24 hours.

South Korea coast guard members search for passengers near the
bow of a sunken ferry on April 17 off Byungpoong Island. Rescue teams
are continuing their search for 293 passengers missing after the ferry
capsized April 16.
(Photo: Ed Jones, AFP/Getty Images)

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